Gather round Mercians, a new patch awaits you! This week we bring you new admin controls as well as fixes and optimisations galore!

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:

• Added the ability to ban/unban players from servers if you are the Admin

Updated:

• Updated char create start button to give more info e.g. Locked, Renown required
  
• Updated player dagger animations with the new ai ones for now (will be tweaked in the future)
  
• Updated player spear attacks with the new ai ones for now (will be tweaked in the future)
  
• Updated the heavy attack of the stick clubs to be a new ai swing (will be tweaked in the future)
  
• Updated crosshair icon on the hud, it now hides when looking at angry ai, and the icon changes depending on what you are looking at doing, talking, picking up, using
  
• Updated successfully repairing a building with a sound to make it more obvious it has been repaired

Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where you couldn't repair anvils
  
• Fixed a movement issue that was causing movement lag
  
• Fixes added to stop chat from breaking on first entry into the game
  
• Fixed a large amount of level bugs
  
• Fixed a bug where if you try repair a building object but didn’t have enough money, it wouldn't run the can’t do that popup
  
• Fixed misc spelling mistakes
  
• Fixed a bunch of log spam across the game
  
• Fixed bug which caused main menu music not to transition in and out when going into and out of the menu
  
• Fixed a bug where eating rotten meat had no negative effects
  Reduced the size and volume of the ambient stream sounds
  
• Fixed a bug where a wood material was missing its phys material, now hit sounds/vfx and triggers footstep sounds
  
• Turned down the volume of rat footsteps
  
• Fixed a bug where you could go into minus renown in the character create and the profession switch screen by pressing the switch button multiple times
  
• Fixed a bug, where when drawing your bow you couldn't see your crosshair as it would be blocked by health bar/interact crosshair icons
  
• Fixed multiple objects missing from the world
  
• Fixed issues preventing A.I. spawning inside churches or in bandit camps

Balancing

• All spears and daggers now have a block move
  
• Adjusted cooldown timers of spears to make combat smoother

Optimised

• Optimised tick rates across the game
  
• Optimised main menu
  
• Optimised skeletal meshes of shop ai and purchasable ai
  
• Optimised the compass system
  
• Large amount of optimisation for the world level
  
• Optimised greedy blueprints

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Citizens of Mercia we bring you a new update for the weekend! This patch contains a whole host of fixes as well as new prisoner animations and the King/Queen of the server feature!

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:

• The most powerful player who is of the “Royalty” profession will be named King/Queen of the server (shown at the top of the map screen)
  
• In the map you can now see which direction you are facing (a small arrow at your player location)
  
• New prisoner animations (for kneeling prisoner): 1x extra idle extra (struggling) 1x released thank you anim
  
• New prisoner animations (tied to stake): 1x idle anim and 4x idle extra anims
  
• Ambient water/river sound tests added around a few streams near Freemans Port
  
• Speed hacking detection

Have the most renown as the royalty profession and enjoy being king/queen of the server, we are currently working to extend this feature to give the player additional benefits,hopefully coming within the next few updates.

Updated:

• Added sounds/voice to prisoners
  
• Polished and updated paths in the environment

Fixes:

• Fixes added for blocking sometimes failing to function properly
  
• Fixed cure sickness by exiting to main menu exploit
  
• Fixes added for combat attacks sometimes swinging through enemies and causing no damage
  
• Fix added for a vender refresh issue
  
• Fixes for attribute points costing less than the shown amount
  
• Fixes/tweaks added to misc spanish translations
  
• Fix for storehouse access through roof exploit
  
• Fixes added for misc resource spawning issues
  
• Knockback now scales correctly with the amount of damage taken
  
• Wolves no longer resort to passive behaviour randomly
  
• Fixes to primitive wells and animal waste to remove delays on pickup
  
• Chamomile mesh reduced in size to prevent problems spawning
  
• Fixes to make wooden doors easier to place in the palisade gatehouse

We are continuing to improve the fidelity of the prisoners in the black death such as this new release animations

Balancing:

• Wolves are now more aggressive
  
• Stone weapons have had their durability increased by 50%
  
• Stone mace durability is increased by 125%

Navigate Mercia with ease and use the new player direction icon on the map to get your bearings.

Optimised:

• Optimised resource management
  
• Optimised prisoner skeletal meshes
  
• Optimised misc animations

Known Bugs

• Chat log can sometimes not appear, relogging should fix it though

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Behold citizens of Mercia, Kings and Queens has arrived! New content awaits and can be found all across the land!

First up a new profession in Mercia, that of Royalty. To ascend to Royalty you will need to be proficient (level 10) in all skills as well as saving up enough renown (by purging the land of sickness and infection). Becoming Royalty is tough but it is well worth it. Royalty have access to craft exclusive high tier items that other professions can’t access such as royal helmet and the royal polearm. They also have a passive bonus, a x2 bonus when earning renown. With great power comes great danger, you will want to make sure you have allies and a strong guild in place when you become a King/Queen.



We have also been working on a lot of new and exciting content from new weapons and animations to new ai types and ways to create a more plague like experience.

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:

• New royalty profession, play as a King or Queen to earn double renown with your profession ability and craft exclusive items at your kingdom table utility
  
• New renown mechanic implemented (Renown can be earned by killing the infected and purging infection carts. Renown can be spent on switching profession at any time)
  
• You can now switch profession at any time if you have the required renown (The switch button is located at the top center of the inventory)
  
• New building Town Hall (Here you can hire bakers, wheat farmers etc)
  
• New building Barracks (Here you can hire a range of guards)
  
• New Kingdom table (A royalty exclusive utility which contains high-tier recipes)
  
• New Courier Ai type (holds valuable items and can be found with a personal guards)
  
• New note system, messages are strewn across mercia
  
• 3 New ai light spear attacks
  
• 2 New weapons (royal polearm and wooden pitchfork)
  
• 4 New prisoner animations (idle and three idle extras)
  
• New royal helmet recipe
  
• New royal guard to hire
  
• New gray wolf enemy NPC
  
• New bodyguard enemy NPCs (for couriers)
  
• New peasant rebel enemy NPCs
  
• Player spawn locations have been themed to add more context to the world
  
• Added search for recipe functionality to the inventory
  
• Now more levels of attribute points with an exponential cost
  
• Renown and up to three random attribute points will be lost on death
  
• New infected animal versions (deer, boar, wolf and rat) can be found in infection zones
  
• nfected peasants, guards and wandering merchants can now be found in infected zones
  
• Infected resources now spawn in infection zones (that provide infected mush)
  
• Infection material visual effects have been added to objects within the infection zone
  
• Ai can now spawn in groups
  
• Animal manure can now be found around the world
  
• Procedural resources now have the chance to spawn on forest floor
  
• New rotten food procedural resource
  
• New loading screen animated rat icon
  
• Temporal AA is now on by default however this can be changed back by adjusting your graphics settings (anti aliasing) in your launcher

You can now switch profession at anytime by clicking the profession badge inside your inventory, however profession will cost you renown

Updated:

• Animals animation backend has been upgraded to the new system which will allow for better full body/upper body blending when switching between being still and moving
  
• Ai will no longer play hit react animations when they are mid attack swing, instead they will follow through with the swing
  
• Updated interaction menu so when you repair an item it doesn't automatically close the ui, allowing you to repair multiple things in a row more easily now
  
• Item icons updated
  
• Updated the rivers across the land of mercia to be less deep to stop clipping issues
  
• Updated the head look at of Ai to be more accurate
  
• Updated the admin menu so you can give yourself renown
  
• Updated the UI to incorporate renown changes
  
• Updated version number
  
• Visual tweaks made to the fog
  
• Procedural grass and mud improved with more detail meshes
  
• Static beggars removed from the character create menu and replaces with animated ones that sick up
  
• Destroying plague carts now has a more unique destruction sound
  
• Rats make footstep sounds and squeak more so you can hear them approach you
  
• Updated the death animations with further sounds
  
• Updated the boar and wolf sounds
  
• Updated the HUD interaction UI, so the hand is over the look at spot
  
• Updated the tutorials quests shown on the HUD so only one shows at a time to keep the hud cleaner
  
• Gold ore is now 50% the size

once you've become royalty you can use the kindgom table to craft exclusive items, more and more royal items will be added in the coming weeks

Fixes:

• Fixed a server to do with Steam packets
  
• Fixed a client crash while dead but still trying to show the outliner
  
• Fixed a rare server crash
  
• Fixes added for resource replication
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented ranged NPCs from patrol at certain distances from the player
  
• Infected carts now display health correctly and no longer destroy in a single hit
  
• Fixed a bug where pressing “E” when setting a new message of the day would close the guild menu
  
• Fixed some misc spelling mistakes in the UI
  
• Increased fade out to server black screen time to hide transitions and stop fading back in too early
  
• Increased char create loading screen fade duration to stop you sometimes being able to see the character loading in
  
• Fixed a bug that stopped some recipes showing up in the inventory recipe list
  
• Fix to the map infection area so that it now more accurately matches the actual plagued area
  
• Debris loot piles no longer block building
  
• Fixes added to stop prisoners being able to be grabbed through cages without smashing the door down
  
• Bandit profession now has exponential XP cost like the other professions

access all your recipes quickly with our new search feature directly inside your inventory

Balancing

• Prisoners now give out basic contracts (for use at the Barracks and Town Hall)
  
• Placeable npcs are now only available through the Barracks and Town Hall
  You can no longer stack contracts
  
• Custom shop merchant is now found in the artisan tree
  
• Farmland now requires manure
  
• Resource amounts balanced so the pool doesn't spam rare NPCs

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Greetings plagued ones, and welcome to Dev Blog #65 - Kings and Queens BETA!

We hope you enjoyed our Kings And Queens content reveal post, if you missed it you can find it here: Kings And Queens

For this Dev Blog we will be taking a further look at what we covered in the teaser post. We will be showing off the Town Hall and Barracks with their respective recipes, changes to our UI with the addition of the nobility system (now renamed to renown), new animations and more!

Currently we are updating the beta version of this update throughout the week and we will be looking to roll it out to everyone on Friday!


At the end of this Dev Blog there will also be a Community Extras section. This will cover details of our recent Build A Base event, community translations and also a look at our upcoming official Steam Guides as an overhaul on our Steam Hub.

Please note that some of the media in this Dev Blog, including our screenshots, images and GIFs may not be the final versions. This includes elements of our UI/HUD as these are placeholders for testing systems.


Here is a closer look at our two new buildings, the Barracks and Town Hall. These are large structures, so make sure that you have plenty of room on your plot for these grand additions!


Town Hall No Decoration


Town Hall Exterior Decorated


Town Hall Interior Decorated

As an additional feature of these structures, you will be able to add decorations and other housing items to both the exterior and interior. Check out the gallery above and below to see the Town Hall and Barracks decorated in all their splendour for some inspiration! You could use animal trophies to mark buildings for ranks, carpets and tapestries for a fancy feeling and lighting for a cosy touch!


Barracks No Decoration


Barracks Exterior Decorated


Barracks Interior Decorated

Moving on to the Desks within these two structures. Each building has it’s own Recruitment Desk, this is where you will find the recipes for each respective NPC Contract to help build up your Kingdom, Castle or Village.

See the gallery below here for a few examples of some of the new NPC contract types! Notice that the Wheat Farmer has Manure in their recipe, this will be a new resource found from animals in the wild! These screenshots also show a close up of the new stained glass windows that feature on these new buildings.


Town Hall Recruitment Desk


Town Hall Wheat Farmer


Town Hall Chicken Farmer


Town Hall Baker


We would like to introduce our new Profession named, Royalty!



Here are a couple of screenshots from our Beta showing the environments to give you a feel for the new Profession. Note: These screenshots are from our Beta.





Changing Profession & UI Additions

Please note: As mentioned in our introduction, these screenshots are from our Beta, and as such are subject to change as some elements may be placeholders.

Here are the new changes to our UI and HUD for the addition of our Renown system. Your overall Renown tally will be displayed just above your Gold on the centre Quick Slot Bar.



Your Renown will also be displayed in your Character Journal at the very top. The icon next to your Profession name functions as the “change Profession” option. Clicking on this will bring up a new UI window.



This window will be displayed when selecting the icon next to your current Profession name in your character journal. Below are all of the Professions with their respective names, icons and Renown cost. To change Profession simply select a Profession of your choosing when you have enough Renown. If you do become Royalty, their are perks but if your character dies, you will lose your nobility.



Sources Of Renown In The World

There are different ways to obtain Renown in The Black Death. Here are some of these that we will be introducing with the new update. Cleansing plague sources, which could be infected enemies such as Rats and Bandits and burning plague carts. Noble deeds such as rescuing trapped prisoners around Mercia will also reward you with Renown. Be careful though, upon death you will now incur a 5% loss of Renown.





Renown is spent on becoming any Profession that you have unlocked. You can now also switch Profession at anytime, keeping your XP/Skill Point progression as well as any items you had on you. Becoming the Beggar requires 0 nobility but all others have a cost, the most expensive and most desirable being the new Royalty Profession.


We have a new feature coming in our next update in the form of NPC Groups. This is separate to our normal NPC Bandits and other enemy types that spawn in the world. The new Groups system allows us to procedurally spawn NPCs in groups together, these NPCs also interact with one another in the world.

To introduce this new Groups system, Noble Couriers now wander the paths of Mercia clutching a chest of goods. These couriers are accompanied by a Noble Bodyguard to protect them as they carry out their mission.


Noble Courier


Noble Bodyguard


Noble Courier Chest Loot

These brave souls can be found across Mercia near towns and on route on pathways. Once slain, these couriers will drop their chest of goods. Chase them down and slay them for some tasty loot!

Check out a GIF of one of these Noble Couriers in action over on our official blog version of this Dev Blog here:

Courier Chase GIF

They will flee from you once spotted, and will even turn their heads when running away to see if you are still pursuing them! Once they have been running for a while, they will stop and catch their breath, this is a good opportunity to land a few hits on them before they are back on the run from your blade. Beware as their bodyguard, equipped with a heavy sword and shield they will do anything to protect their courier, don’t get on their bad side!


More weapons are coming to The Black Death, these weapons will be available through looting NPCs and raiding locations around the world. Why not create a peasant revolt with your very own pitchfork! Some of these weapons will be craftable through the blacksmith profession very soon so keep your eyes peeled.



Combat animations continue to improve giving the player more feedback and variation, spears are currently going getting an overhaul for NPCs and players, keep your range and stab your way to the top.



He’s a man on a mission, here are a couple of animation GIFs of our new Noble Couriers. The first is their run animation and the second is their hit reaction animation!





Here is a GIF of our new captured prisoner animation. Save them and they will be forever in your debt!



Here is a little development bonus for you all! From the desk of SIG_James, here is a new loading screen GIF! This will be replacing the rotating plague skull icon on our loading screens.




As always, if you do find any bugs or issues when playing on our Beta Test Server please fill in a Bug Report over on our The Black Death: Google Bug Form , every bug counts! When submitting bugs make sure to always select the Beta option in the drop down when playing on the Beta branch that looks like this “Version V0.33 (Beta)”.



To download our Beta branch follow these steps:
1. Make sure The Black Death is closed and not running.
2. Go to your Steam Client and navigate to your Steam Games Library.
3. Right click on “The Black Death” and select “Properties”.
4. Navigate to the far right tab that reads “Betas” and select it.
5. Using the drop down menu, select “Beta – Beta test branch” and select Close.
6. In a few moments Steam should start to download the Beta branch of The Black Death.
7. To ensure that The Black Death is kept up-to-date before other games, select the “Updates” tab. Then click on the drop down menu and select “High Priority – Always auto-update this game before others”.
8. To switch back to The Black Death “Live” build. Simply follow steps 1 through 5 and then select “None – Opt out of all beta programs”

Take a look at the image below. If the title is missing the [beta] you have the “Live” branch installed.






If you have been playing on our Beta branch, when you have finished your play session and have closed The Black Death, a Google Form should open in your default web browser. This is designed to help us gather feedback from your play session on the Beta, and to help us get a clear impression of your thoughts after playing. We greatly appreciate your feedback and suggestions. Thank you in advance for your submissions.

If for some reason the Google Form does not load in your web browser, or if you accidentally close it, here is a link to the form. The Black Death Beta Playthrough Survey


Community Translations

A big thank you to our community for all of their contributions to help translate The Black Death into many different languages! Thank you for your time and effort in volunteering to help out within the community. We have recently had a Hungarian translation submission from Discord user Hadnagy/Error202#1159, a Greek translation is also in the pipeline from Discord user Jim#9141!

A big thank you also goes out to those who have sent in alterations for our existing translations, we are always looking at improving elements of The Black Death and we want to make sure that our translations are polished as much as possible.

We have started to implement the Hungarian translation provided by Hadnagy/Error202#1159 into our Beta build. At the time of writing this Dev Blog, it is still being worked on and isn’t fully functional yet, but the flag is now included in our Language settings in our Beta.



Build-A-Base Contest Closes




Our “SIG Presents Build-A-Base Contest” has now concluded! A big thank you to everyone to sent us submissions. We will be selecting the top three and dishing out the prizes as well as showcasing the winners over on our next Community Showcase issue, so keep a look out for that. We will be contacting the winners within the next month to sort out their prizes. Thank you to everyone who participated. We will be running another event in the future!

Official Steam Guides Update



We have some new Steam Guides coming soon to The Black Death Steam Community Hub! A Mega Player Housing Guide is being worked on, it’s quite a meaty guide with loads of screenshots and information for both new and current players! We will be posting this all over our social channels and on the forums when it is ready. This guide is based from the current V0.33 version of the game, and will be updated as new additions are made to the game.

Also in the works are the following guides:
– Player Mega Housing Guide
– Tech Tips Guide
– Mini Language Settings Guide
– Mini Controller Setup Guide
– Mini Guild Guide
– Mercian Cookbook Guide
– Armour Sets & Clothing Guide
– World Events & Plague World Event Guide

Alongside these, the Quick Start Guide and Advanced Guide will also be getting revamped when our new update is released!


We hope you enjoyed reading this weeks Dev Blog, that’s all for this week and we will see you next time!

// The SIG Team

——————————————

To keep in the loop, follow The Black Death on our social and news sites!


The Black Death on Twitter

The Black Death on Facebook

The Black Death on Steam

The Black Death Official Discord

The Black Death Steam Community Hub

The Black Death on Green Man Gaming

Gather round citizens of Mercia, today we have a special reveal for you:

“KINGS AND QUEENS”

A massive content update is heading for Mercia and should be arriving in the next few weeks. Ready yourselves for a large variety of new content, including new enemies, weapons, buildings, items as well as new features and most importantly a new profession (Royalty).

Here's a full breakdown of what to expect in the coming weeks:


There has always been something off about having to die to switch to another profession. Originally we wanted players to be able to switch profession whenever they wanted however this caused big issues with balancing the game...until now with our new nobility system.

Nobility points are gained by cleansing plague sources, ending the lives of infected people, rescuing prisoners and surviving the day in Mercia. Beware on your travels as death now carries a price as you will now incur a 5% loss of nobility.

Nobility can be used to purchase sought-after items from Town Earls, however it is more importantly spent on becoming any profession that you have unlocked. You can now also switch profession at anytime, keeping your XP/Skill Point progression as well as any items you had on you. Becoming the beggar requires 0 nobility but all others have a cost, the most expensive and most desirable being the new “King/Queen” profession.

Here's a more detailed example of nobility cost for professions.


Kings/Queens are unlocked once the player has reach level 10 in all professions and is willing to part with 1000 nobility points. As a King/Queen you can earn double nobility points and gain access to an exclusive utility that has a wide range of royal craftable items, giving a distinct advantage to your guilds Kingdom. The high nobility point cost for this profession makes for a tense experience and in turn brings a whole new dynamic to The Black Death. Killing royalty means a great deal, you will want to protect your King/Queen for the good of your guild! Use your time wisely as King/Queen to earn as much nobility as possible to ensure your royal lineage continues.



We will be adding new attributes to the game such as “Nobility” (the ability to gain more nobility from certain actions) but more importantly we will be making the attribute points system more persistent.

Now when you die you will only lose 3 attribute points from randomly chose attributes instead of a complete wipe. With this we keep death fairly punishing whilst prevent high level players slaying the weak risk free. We are also re-balancing the cost and amount of levels that you will be able to reach (looking at around 25 levels per attribute).


We are continuing to expand the variation of NPCs that can be rescued, with plans to include some found in the infection zone. We also want to give the player the ability to customise them before placing them within their kingdom. The new town hall and barracks will act as a training grounds to upgrade NPCs to something more catered to your needs. Want a baker? No problem, build a town hall and speak to your newly recruited mayor, supply him with a peasant (contract) and turn them into something more useful. Want a bigger more deadlier guard? Why not visit your barracks and speak to the captain about improving your soldiers ability to defend. These utility buildings will provide a new range of NPCs unseen before such as crossbowman, plague doctors and carpenters.



Here at SIG, we realise that keeping The Black Death alive and kicking requires new content for players to encounter but also allows us to get closer to our goal of making the world a more filling/long lasting experience. So over the next few weeks we will continue to expand the A.I. system with new variations, implement weapons to loot and craft and of course expand Mercia with new areas to explore. Soon The Black Death will feel even bigger and more enjoyable than before so thank you everyone for your time with us and we look forward to bringing you this revolutionary new update.

Hello everyone,

We have a small update to address some issues that sneaked into update V0.33 here are the hotfix patch notes in full:

Fixes

• Fixed an issue that would set population of servers to zero on the server browser list
  
• Fixed an issue that wouldn't update health of barricades on the player's HUD
  
• Fixed an issue that made it impossible to use the context menu on full health structures resulting in them not being able to be destroyed

If you are interested in the full patch notes of update V0.33 you can find them HERE

Thanks everyone for playing and we will see you in Mercia

The S.I.G. Team.

Citizens of Mercia the weeks end approaches and so does an update with new exciting content, a broad range of fixes and further admin tools!

Find the new relic helmet through world events and dominate Mercia in style

Our first priority this week was fixing the LAN server issues. The latest engine update (4.20) from Unreal came with a bug that caused connections to LAN servers to fail. We looked into their code and managed to fix the problem so you can now connect to your own LAN servers again. While fixing things we thought we would further empower server admins by added extra features. Server admins can now destroy any player built object in their server (even if they are not the owner). We also added two new options to the admin panel (“F8”). Admins can now force destroy all buildings on a server and can also wipe a specific characters save from their server (by using their steam id which you work out here: https://steamidfinder.com/)

Another of our core fixes this week has been working on land claim exploits to help put and end to some exploits being used on the PVE servers. With the fixes out the way we moved on to finishing off some new content we have been working on behind the scenes. New character models, new animations, new relic item etc.

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:

• Now all new spawn players start in their underwear
  
• Added underwear models for both male and females
  
• Added more options to the admin menu (you can now clear all buildings on the server as well as deleting a specific players save file on the server)
  
• Added the ability for server admins to be able to destroy any building (even if they are not the original creator)
  
• Added new relic event which contains a rare helmet
  
• Added functionality to allow female versions of equipped clothing (currently limited to primitive vest)
  
• Added new animations for the dagger weilding Ai: parried, idle close to player, blocking idle, blocking hit react, heavy strike 01 and heavy strike 02
  
• Added new primitive clothing recipes (primitive vest, primitive trousers, fingerless gloves)
  
• Added new potato procedural resource
  
• Added new potato stew recipe under the food filter in the inventory

NPC dagger animations added and soon will be added for the player's attacks

Updated:

• Server names can now have spaces in them
  
• The beggars customisation restrictions have been removed and you can now customise their head and hair like as with the other professions
  
• Updated character create UI for the new clothing spawning and we also added a fade on gender switch to cover up the mesh swap
  
• Inventory and utility recipe lists now have all unlocked recipes at the top then locked after that to make it easier to use
  
• Updated/added sounds to some AI dagger animations
  
• The tent is now a bed roll and has a new sleeping bag model and is unlocked earlier
  
• Tweaked all clothing meshes to fit new underwear models
  
• Tweaked the HUD building timer and icon to be more minimalistic

Enjoy deeper customisation with new underwear clothing for male and female characters

Fixes:

• Fixed a Unreal Engine 4.20 LAN connection issues, so you can now connect to your LAN servers again
  
• Fixed bug which stopped you setting the server name in the server settings config
  
• Fixed distance checks for placing different sized land claims so they don’t overlap
  
• Fixed a bug which stopped doing your sprint animations on other clients view of you
  
• Fixed a bug which caused players to have to relog in order for the land claim permission toggle changes to take effect
  
• Fixed a bug where using next on head options wouldn’t loop round to the beginning of the array again when it hit the last head option
  
• Fixed bug where UI armour value on inventory items would get rounded to the nearest int, instead of being to a decimal value
  
• Fixed a bug that caused siege weapons to disappear after construction
  
• Fixed a bug which stopped you getting guild points for land claims
  
• Fixes to blueprint errors in the HUD
  
• Possible fix added for flickering green
  
• Fixes to French and German localisation
  
• Fixes to animation backend for the dagger weilding AI

Additional admin control has been added for your rented/created servers

Balancing:

• Re-ordered campfire and cooked fish recipes to be unlocked earlier
  
• Small bag is now unlocked automatically and requires animal pelt
  
• Increased the amount of resources that spawn procedurally around the world.

Known Bugs

• Some NPCs will deal no damage with bone club attacks

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Gather round Citizens of Mercia we have a new update for you, full of fixes, quality of life improvements as well as the introduction of ingame server admin tools!

One of the bigger things we have been working on so far this week is a first pass at ingame server admin tools. Players can now press “F8” (by default) to bring up the admin console menu. Upon entering the correct server password you can access tools allowing a range of functionality; from flying, giving gold and xp to spawning in items and kicking specific players. We will build on this adding more functionality and cleaning up the UI over the following builds.



We have also been making good progress crushing a few bugs that came around with the upgrade to Unreal engine Version 4.20, namely some interacting with object problems as well as issues with procedural resources spread and the gold transfer from lootables. We have also added in some quality of life improvements based off community feedback such as auto closing the loot window when you loot all and being able to use items from/while in your storage.

Here are the patch notes in full:


New:

• Added a admin menu (“F8” by default) which if you have the server password, gives you access to server admin controls
  
• You can now use items directly from storage and lootables
  
• Added a new light attack animation to thief ai
  
• Wheat, Oat and Sugar crops now spawn procedurally (on farmland) around the world

Updated:

• HUD chat box tweaked to make it less obtrusive while playing
  
• Updated looting menu so now, clicking “Loot All” automatically closes the inventory
  
• Tweaked some HUD elements and made it so things fade out partially when they are not currently relevant to the player
  
• Tweaked player camera

Fixes:

• Fixes added for problems with interacting with items in the world (crosshair, trace blocking etc)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused gold not to get moved into your inventory when using loot all
  
• Fixed it so you can no longer jump/crouch through Kingdom Keep windows to gain access to a player’s base
  
• Fixed a bug which caused Ai with bone clubs to not cause damage
  
• Players can now retrieve farmer contracts from prisoners, peasant contracts are now separate and for recipes only and can also be obtained from prisoners
  
• Fixed a bug which caused Merchant NPC contracts to be unattainable
  
• Fixed bugs that could cause NPCs to spawn on top of roofs
  
• Fixed locked door animation bug
  
• Fix added for a bug which could cause the using item sound in the inventory to be cut off before it had finished
  
• Fixed a bug that stopped some ranged ai from doing close up melee damage
  
• Fixes for friendly Ai: Head to rotate towards players, blood effects now trigger on them, distance anims and randomisations
  
• Fix for Ai not keeping in up close upper body pose while near the player
  
• Fix for the quest in the top right hud scale issue after engine upgrade
  
• Fix added to make procedural wells make water sound when used
  
• Fixes to stop ai sliding around on the floor

Balancing:

• Carry weight for bags has been tweaked. There is now increased weight between tiers
  
• Campfires now save and decay like tents rather than being destroyed after a short period of time
  
• Rebalanced campfire and cooking recipes to require kindling

Known Bugs:

• Barricades take damage but their health bars don’t update correctly

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Welcome citizens of Mercia,

We have built another large update for the black death, this version focuses on upgrading the unreal engine version and solidifying door and land claim ownership systems to provide a smoother and more enjoyable experience. This update also lays down strong foundations for us to add more content in the near future and aid us in solidifying the black death’s core mechanics.

WARNING: DUE TO SYSTEM CHANGES THIS UPDATE MAY WIPE PLAYER BUILT STRUCTURES BUT SHOULDN’T EFFECT CHARACTER PROGRESSION

As a side note, the update for engine version 4.20 may cause issues that are unforeseen and we are prepared to fix issues as fast as possible so please don’t hesitate to let us know of any issues.

Here are the patch notes in full:

New:

• Upgraded to Unreal Engine Version 4.20
  
• Doors now have permission settings on them (if you are the owner you can set it to either self or guild)
  
• Land claims come in three sizes (crafted), land claim, town land claim and kingdom land claim. The owner can set permission to build on their land to self only or Guild). Other people can no longer access the other player's land claims
  
• Caged prisoners that provide a range of contracts
  
• Dead bodies spawn pools of blood
  
• Players now spawn at random safehaven towns across the map instead of just at freemans port
  
• Mercenary and thief NPC enemies
  
• A.I. dagger attack logic and animations
  
• Anti-cheating security measures for VAC banning

Updated:

• Updated A.I. animation system to allow seamless transitions between full body and upper body animations
  
• Updated behaviour of A.I., they will flank more and be more varied at a distance
  
• A.I. play a blend of a death animation and ragdoll when they are killed now
  
• Updated and tweaks to the player movement system
  
• Updated procedural placement systems to be more responsive and consistent for A.I. and resources.
  
• Updated tutorial to include new changes to mechanics
  
• Storage has been changed to be a weight system instead of slots
  
• UI popup added for when you hit max storage in a chest
  
• When taking items from storage you now get the option to take the entire stack and to take just one item
  
• Tweaks to the HUD to make it more immersive
  
• A.I. get bloody when hit
  
• Hit blood vfx updated
  
• Temporary tweaks to bow
  
• Added a fade to black transition from server browser when you enter a match
  
• Updated version number
  
• Primitive wells now spawn around the world to provide dirty water instead of puddles

Fixes:

• Fixes added for various exploits
  
• Fixes for some rare client side crashes
  
• Fixes added to help stop land claims from being able to overlap
  
• Fixed name bug where Ale would say “Resource” in the UI
  
• UI fixes across the entire game because of engine update
  
• Fixed a bug which caused you not to play an animation when you used a lock door
  
• Fixes added for A.I. perception

Balancing:

• Town Earls now sell royal items and no longer sell contracts, because of the new prisoner mechanic and craftable land claims
  
• Wardrobes now have greater storage capacity and re-balanced recipe requirements

Optimisations:

• Large optimisation to networking

Known Bugs:

• Fishing is currently not functional

As always, thanks for all of your bug reports and thanks for playing!

// The SIG Team

Greetings plagued ones, and welcome to Dev Blog #64!

Apologies for the large gap between blogs, we have been very busy with V0.30, V0.31 and our Hot fixes in-between. In this issue we will be taking a look at what we have been working on, fixing exploits, clamping down on cheats and our Unreal Engine Upgrade.


Thanks to our diligent community we are aware of serious issues related to exploiting/duplicating items and players using cheats on our official servers, so we are currently working on solutions to combat it, the coming unreal engine upgrade will make it easier to locate and ban cheaters alongside this.


In this Dev Blog we will be taking a look at a lot of different content features that we have been working on!

Prisoners And Contracts

We are expanding recipes and creating new items to require contracts for example the trebuchet requiring the “sapper contract” and to help extend this system you will be able to obtain contracts from prisoners that you can free from bandit camps all around the world, this system will be placed procedurally within bandit areas allowing you to acquire contract items from other sources rather than just your local town earl. Why don’t you save your next guard captain from the clutches of the bandit king?



Free Build Items

Currently within the game players have access to some placeable objects that don’t require stable ground to build/place like tents and campfires, we would like create more items that have this capability, such as campsites (re-spawn point) and loot stashes (storage), these will be starting recipes and have fairly basic recipe requirements however will suffer from low health and high decay, having trouble finding land? Start your life in the forest hidden away building up your empire far from the reaches of tyranny. We will be adding additional small land plots throughout the map to ease players into bigger construction.



Throwing Rocks



This system allows players to equip a stack of rocks and throw them as a low damage projectile just like the NPCs do to you, now it’s time for a fair fight! It is now very close to completion and will be free to test on our beta next week.

Land Claims And Doors

To get players on the property ladder sooner and provide more avenues to land ownership we are in the process to making different tiers of land claim craftable (which vary in size and health) and allowing doors to be owned without the need of a land claim making these systems entirely separate, players will be able to own their built doors automatically and can adjust each one’s permission to be private or open to their guild, allowing you to have public and private spaces with your kingdoms. Land claims will soon be solely for preventing others building near your land and will have a permission list as before.



Beggars And Underwear

We plan on allowing character customisation of beggars again to prevent all early players looking the same, this change will also come with a large alteration to the character’s models themselves. Now you will start in underwear no matter the profession and will be able to craft a large range of basic clothing to cover yourself up. This update will come with more female versions of clothing also but will be an ongoing task for the future.



Production Buildings And Cages

More choice for players to build their own kingdoms the way they want it will always be a priority for us. More items to craft and build will be ready to try out soon such as barns, windmills, granaries and a brewery, these are buildings with strong cosmetic themes however we will be also be introducing cages, this is a small confined craftable structure that has a door slot (like houses) in which you can place your newly caught prisoner within or to simply use as a protective system for your loot. These will come in 3 tiers, stick, wooden and iron.


We are currently in the process of upgrading our Unreal Engine version to 4.20, this brings a TON of additions with it.



If you would like to read all about the new update and what’s included, check it out here over on the official site: Unreal Engine 4.20 Released!

One of the new features that we will be utilising for The Black Death is, Steam Authentication. The information below has been taken from the update notes for 4.20.

New: Steam Authentication

Steam Authentication has been added! Games can now add a packet handler component that interfaces with Steam’s authentication APIs, enabling them to advertise their servers properly, handle VAC/publisher bans, and provide better validation of clients. If enabled, clients joining a server now have to be authenticated by Steam before being allowed into gameplay. By default, clients who fail authentication are kicked from the server.


Localisation Progress

We are currently in the process of polishing up our existing languages in game, from any contributions that have been sent in by community members. A big thank you from us all at SIG for your continued contributions!

On that note, since adding in Polish and Spanish first passes, we are also now collaborating with 2 more community members on an Italian and Portuguese localisation! When we have more details on their progress we will be sure to inform everyone. When these have been completed by our community members, their localisations will be added to a new Beta build for testing.

SIG Presents “Build-A-Base” Event (Closes: 6th August 2018)

For those of you who missed our Steam announcement post on our feed, forum post and social posts too, we currently have an in game event running until the 6th August. You can find the full details over on our Steam sticky post here:

SIG Presents: "Build-A-Base" Event! 16/07/2018 - 06/08/2018



Steam Guide: A Guide To Player Housing (In Progress…)

We are currently drafting up a Steam Guide for playing housing. This Steam guide covers everything you need to know about building a base in The Black Death. It covers the basics such as controls, small houses, larger houses, Castles and Kingdoms too. There are also sections for every buildable housing item in game, along with decorative items, NPC Contracts and lighting.



This guide is still being worked on, as there is a lot of details to cover! When finished, it will be shared around on our Steam forums and social pages too.

We hope you enjoyed reading this weeks Dev Blog and ,as always, thank you for playing, that’s all for this week, see you next time!

// The SIG Team

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